6-068: Merchant Freighter Spanial
Ghost Rider
When Lia comes to do her final short watch before docking approach she can see there is another file saved over the composite of Jennie’s initial run and Lia’s final best one. It’s marginal but, it’s just a little smoother on the passengers. The file IDs suggest there were seven trials before that that haven’t been saved. There’s also an eNote for her:
‘Great turnover! Awesome work Lia!’ and it’s signed with a smiley face.
Clients
Lia successfully updates her Public Net page.
‘IQ-Based’
Yes, for any roll based on a different attribute to usual, just swap out the attribute values. So Carousing (HT+0) becomes (IQ+0) = 13.
Rolls
To confirm:
- Lia used Savoir-Faire (High Society) as the ‘helper skill’ and was successful
- That success gave her +2 for her Current Affairs (High Culture) roll skill of 14 (now 16).
- She rolled a 9 for success by 7 in her ‘Winta is Here‘ efforts.
- The Carousing roll was for her previous encounter with Aston and she feels it went reasonably well.
Activities
Perfume
Noted. If you wish you can roll to see how satisfied she is with her perfumery experiments. Could be worthwhile familiarising yourself with the Taking Extra Time rules. Lia can have been working on this one for a long time in the prototype stage, if you wish.Discussion – Invention Rules
Creating a perfume is something we can deal with under the Invention rules (this is GURPS…of course there are invention rules!)
In summary, invention is two to four step process. To build a single bespoke thing takes two steps, with optional third and fourth steps.
The steps are:
- Concept – base time 1 Cycle (assuming working time of 1 Shift)
– Keep rolling until success of critical failure allows moving on to Step 2 (Critical Fail meas you think you have a good idea… but it actually sucks) - Prototype – base time varies with complexity, For a perfume, I’d say it could be from a few tasks to 4 Cycles.
– Roll 1D-2 for time in Cycles (I’ll say 1 takes a few Tasks, 2 takes a few Jobs)
– Roll to see if successful prototype - Testing – same range as for Prototyping, the longer time spent the more issues likely found
(NB: I’ve changed the GURPS rules here, which have a fixed period for testing no matter how complex the invention – I think it’s silly to say Lia can make a perfume in 15 minutes but has to spend three weeks testing it) - Production- 50% of the prototyping time for single copies or 20x prototyping time to set up a production line that can make copies 7 times faster.
Included fyi
I imagine most of Lia’s perfumes stop at Step 2. Perfume is something she can test just by wearing in private. It’s probably only an issue if she finds an unusual new ingredient she hasn’t used previously.
(NB: Jacob, if you’re reading I use the same basic rules for when Oliver’s programming or working on his glasses. Although his dev times are longer.)
Summary
- Roll for success on concept.
- Roll for base time.
- Roll success on prototype.
- Test if needed.
Approaching Dock
Two Tasks out from Mundo Zargo orbital station, Jennie asks Lia to come to Control. She indicates the right seat and switches scanners and comms to Lia, although she notes that Jennie keeps an eye on both functions. As an aerospace pilot, Lia is certainly used to station approach protocols and that is no problem for her; she won’t even need to roll. The handling of Spanial into dock is also similar to what she would do in a shuttle, it’s just that Jennie is maneuvering a much larger, less well-balanced mass than Lia is used to and Lia notes that Jennie is giving herself a lot more time and coming into dock a lot slower than Lia is used to. (Aerospace craft tend to be small and well-balanced, because they have to deal with gravity and wind forces, If Jennie tried landing Spanial on the surface of Mundo Zargo, there’s a good chance the ship would break up before it got anywhere near the ground. Plus, compared to a typical shuttle, Spanial’s thrust is less powerful.)
When it is conformed that they are locked into their docking bay and all is well Jennie turns to Lia and says, “Well, over to you Cargo Master.”
Lia would be aware that at this point it’s usual for Legion Customs officials to come aboard, and check the ship’s and everyone aboard’s papers. Sometimes they inspect cargo and occasionally even search cabins and other areas too. It’s usual for the crew and any passengers to assemble near the airlock for the inspection.
FYI, the time is BR01 on Lia’s day 4.
Just to clarify – is the new file a different run that Jennie made and recorded, or is it Lia’s crit success run or a combined video of the two… I’m slightly unclear. 😋 Lia will be chuffed over Jennie’s praise for her practice either way.
I hope Winta being here will be rather better received than that clip implies…
Trying to figure out the rules on making the perfume seems complicated! I rolled for your first suggestion, taking extra time in to account – I figured that since she’s had a month on ship, she could easily have spent 1 or 2 full 8 hour days working on this (possibly more than one new scent). That puts the skill at 16 or 17 – I’ll let you decide which – I rolled an 11.
Then I looked at all the other stuff you wrote. So, I rolled a Crit on concept. A 5-2 on base time and a 12 on Prototype. That’s versus a base skill of 13 unless you count the extra time spent. You can decipher all that and let me know how she did.
Lia is interested in watching Jennie work as usual. She will happily operate the other controls for her.
She’ll smile in response to Jennie’s handover.
“Thanks Pilot.”
She’ll patch through on open comms:
“All crew report to the airlock for docking inspection. Repeat: report to airlock for docking inspection.”
I assume she would have all relevant documentation prepared beforehand as necessary.
She will sign off and head down to the airlock if there is nothing else she needs to do.